26 March 2012

Liora Zachary, an immigrant from France, attended the news conference called Sunday by the editor of a French-Israeli publication and spoke out against the rampant anti-Israeli incitement in France. She described a situation that sounds somewhat like descriptions of pre-Holocaust Europe. [Toulouse born Avraham Azoulai, ed. Le P-tit Hebdo, News Conference]

"Children, in the buses, in the Metro, going to school, coming from school, couples in the street – this is just an unbearable situation. And we are talking about France, we are not talking about some kind of jungle. This is one of the main countries of Europe."

"Not unlike the Jews of Europe before the Holocaust, Zachary sounded surprised that the Jews could be treated in this way. "The Jews of France have always been very active in the French community, in the French market," she said. "They have contributed tremendously to France. And I don't think this is the kind of treatment they should receive."

25 March 2012

Rav Shlomo Brevda Shlita, who was rushed to Sloan Kettering Hospital, and is reportedly in critical condition R”L. Rav Brevda is known world-wide, as a famous Magid Shiur who has delivered thousands of drashos in Jewish communities worldwide. Rav Brevda is also the Mechaber of numerous seforim. The name for Tehillim is Shlomo Leib ben Miriam.

Rav Shteinman is quoted as having said ... that "to our distress just about no "talmidei chachomim gedolim" remain in our generation, and the few that remain should be treated with great respect."

While the brother of a crazed Muslim terrorist who killed Jews: a father, his two little sons, and a little girl in a frenzy: “celebrated” the death of his brother..." the murderer ... All just because they were Jews.

VAYIKRA ...A Mother Calls Out

A MOTHER'S REQUEST

"My heart is broken. I am unable to speak. There are no ways for me to be able to express the great and all-consuming pain resulting from the murder of my dear husband Rabbi Jonathan and our sons, Aryeh and Gavriel, and of Miriam Monsonego, daughter of the dedicated principal of Ozar Hatorah and his wife, Rabbi Yaakov and Mrs. Monsonego.

May no one ever have to endure such pain and suffering.

Because so many of you, my cherished brothers and sisters in France and around the world, are asking what you can do on my behalf, on behalf of my daughter Liora and on behalf of the souls of my dear husband and children, I feel that, difficult though it may be, it is incumbent upon me to answer your entreaties.

My husband's life was dedicated to teaching Torah. We moved back to the country of his birth to help young people learn about the beauty of Torah. He was truly a good man, loving, giving, and selfless. He was sensitive to all of G-d's creatures, always searching for ways to reveal the goodness in others.

He and I raised Aryeh and Gavriel to live the ways of Torah. Who would have known how short would be their time on this Earth, how short would be the time I would be with them as their mother?

I don't know how I and my husband's parents and sister will find the consolation and strength to carry on, but I know that the ways of G-d are good, and He will reveal the path and give us the strength to continue. I know that their holy souls will remain with us forever, and I know that very soon the time will come when we will be together again with the coming of Moshiach.

I wholeheartedly believe in the words of the verse: "The L-ord has given, and the L-ord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the L-ord." I thank the Almighty for the privilege, short though it was, of raising my children together with my husband. Now the Almighty wants them back with Him.

To all those who wish to bring consolation to our family and contentment to the souls of the departed: Let's continue their lives on this Earth.

Parents, please kiss your children. Tell them how much you love them, and how dear it is to your heart that they be living examples of our Torah, imbued with the fear of Heaven and with love of their fellow man.

Please increase your study of Torah, whether on your own or with your family and friends. Help others who may find study difficult to achieve alone.

Please bring more light into the world by kindling the Sabbath candles this and every Friday night. (Please do so a bit earlier than the published times as a way to add holiness to our world.)

The holiday of Passover is approaching. Please invite another person into your homes so that all have a place at a Seder to celebrate the holiday of our freedom.

Along with our tearful remembrance of our trials in Egypt so many years ago, we still tell over how "in each and every generation, they have stood against us to destroy us." We all will announce in a loud and clear voice: "G-d saves us from their hands."

The spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished; its connection with Torah and its commandments can never be destroyed.

May it be G-d's will that from this moment on, we will all only know happiness.

I send my heartfelt condolences to the Monsonego family for the loss of their daughter Miriam, and I pray for the speedy recovery of Aharon ben Leah, who was injured in the attack.

24 March 2012

There are no words which can describe the evil perpetrated by Mohammed Merah in Toulouse, on Monday morning, March 19th 2012.

Merah is the Islamic Jihadist who murdered three French soldiers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children, ages 8, 6, 3 in cold blood.

What is equally sickening—and in many ways more frightening—is when progressive and peace-loving politicians, professors and journalists simply don’t grasp the gruesome reality: There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Jihadists, whose hate to every single Jew knows no bounds. These are people who find it moral and noble to lift an 8 year old angelic girl by her hair and shoot her in her template, only because she was born to Jewish parents.

Here are three examples of this delusional ignorance, pontificated by a politician, a historian and a journalist.

In Brussels this week, at a conference on Palestinian refugees, Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, cast her eyes beyond the killings of three Jewish children in Toulouse. Ashton linked this atrocity to the tragic killings of children in recent times elsewhere in the world—in Belgium, in Norway, in Syria, "and when we see what is happening in Gaza."

The Toulouse-equals-Gaza remark naturally drew a torrent of protests in Israel, with officials denouncing Ashton for equating the deliberate murder of Jewish children in Toulouse with the loss of Gaza children in Israeli defensive operations against terrorist groups using children as human shields.

Ashton said her comments had been misinterpreted, but the damage, of course, has been done.

Then in a March 21 article in the English Forward, “Toulouse Tragedy Shows Rhetoric's Danger,” Houston history professor Robert Zaretsky shifts the focus of the murder in France to the intolerant rhetoric by French leaders about Muslims: “It is a matter of public record that Sarkozy’s minister of the interior, Claude Guéant, has made a series of provocative claims concerning French Muslims. Whether it was his assertion that “all civilizations are not equal” or his prediction that if foreigners legally residing in France were given the vote, the French would find themselves eating halal meat in school and office cafeterias, such remarks fall well outside the purview of a man responsible for the nation’s security.

“This is no less the case for a president who, over the years, has made a political target of the French Muslims, a discourse most recently marked by Sarkozy’s declarations that ‘we have too many foreigners in France…’”

Instead of identifying and bemoaning the monstrous, barbaric and grotesque belief system of Islamists as the cause of all this verbiage, she comes close to blaming the murders in Toulouse on this anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Finally, in a recent news article, the New York Times finds a way to use the killing of the three children in France as a peg to blame Israel for Palestinian children casualties in its response to Gaza rocket barrages.

Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner penned an article in the March 21 edition of the Times ("Fury in Israel at Remarks Linking Gaza to Toulouse" page A5). She ends her piece with a telling paragraph:

"In the latest cross-border violence between Israel and militant groups in Gaza, 26 Palestinians were killed over four days, according to the Israeli military. Most were militants, but four were civilians. A 12-year-old boy was among those killed in Israeli airstrikes; another boy, 14, was killed by explosives in disputed circumstances. In the same period, Palestinians fired over 150 rockets into southern Israel, none of which claimed a life."

Never mind that the four-day cross-border violence was started by Gaza terrorists and Israel was responding under its internationally recognized right of self-defense—a point neatly hidden from Kershner's copy. If Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committee had desisted from launching volleys of rockets, there would have been no violence, and Gaza kids would have been spared.

Never mind also that the 14-year-old Gaza boy wasn't killed "in disputed circumstances," as Kershner puts it. A reporter of the French news service, Agence France Presse, investigated the scene of the boy's death and reported there was no evidence whatsoever that he was killed by an airstrike. Everything instead pointed to youngsters playing with live ammunition. Kershner, however, obfuscates the circumstances so as not to exonerate the Israeli military.

Never mind that when 150 rockets rain down on civilian communities in southern Israel, tens of thousands of Israeli children are traumatized by sirens that alert them to take cover within a matter of seconds. Many of these children develop lasting psychological pain and suffering. But widespread cases of post-traumatic stress don't enter into Kershner's equation.

The only link between the Toulouse massacre and the four-day Gaza cross-border violence is that innocents have been targeted by Jew-hating terrorists. But don't expect to read that in the New York Times.

These three examples are telling. They inform us of the real danger confronting us, not only from the Jihadist blood-thirsty murderers but from the scores of Western leaders and thinkers who will forever excuse their behavior and put the blame on the weeping victims.___

23 March 2012

As heard on the Glenn Beck show, there have been 10,215 NEW Regulations by this administration's czars put into law. Not a few hundred, but... Ten thousand, two hundred and fifteen!

That's 10,215.

For what purpose?

To what end?

Visit Glenn Beck to find out what this means for Americans, and for the world. Glenn has a passion for the America we all knew, but see changing before our eyes, and not for the better.

What does this mean for our Redemption?

And a few more words:

Michael Savage: "Will President Obama succeed in his plans to transform the greatest engine of freedom the world has ever seen into a top-down, heavy-handed authoritarian regime – if not a dictatorship? Or will the American people succeed in exposing and ridding themselves of this new Leninist?"

Michael Savage issues a clarion call to his fellow citizens: Stand up against tyranny in the United States! Michael Savage's new non-fiction book, Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama's Dream of the Socialist States of America, is coming out April 3.

It might be interesting and an eye opener also to find out what Michael has to say. He's been witnessing the creeping changes for many years. While I do not agree with some of his opinions, he does have a keen eye.

*****************We know this Golus has to end. We are witnessing the fulfillment of the words of our Neviim. And this should strengthen our Emuna and Bitachon. The God of all creation is moving around in preparation for our redemption. His children and chosen are indeed actively awaiting. We need to open our hearts to all Jews to bring them closer. We need to cry out to Him from our deepest yearnings, as we once did in Mitzrayim. Pesach is very very near.

While the American Jewish intelligentsia discusses the legitimacy of an Israeli strike on Iran, European anti-Semitism raises its head, leaving on the ground three Jewish children and a rabbi in Toulouse.

During the Holocaust, Jews were dispatched to the gas chambers (in France the local police did the “dirty work”).

Seventy years later, in a modern, democratic Europe that presumably had shed itself of the legacy of that era, Jews have again come under attack.

Witnesses of the Toulouse killing spree in the Jewish school tell of students hunted by the terrorist inside the building.

The same thing happened forty years ago in Maalot, when Arab terrorists killed twenty Israeli students in a local school.

A year ago, in Toulouse, which was under the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, the words “Israel Nazi” and “Zionist Nazis” appeared again on the Jewish structures.

The terrorist aimed to slay Jews, only because they were Jews.

The school had absolutely nothing to do with “the occupation”, but has everything to do with the Jewish question.

The attack resembles most that of Itamar, when a year ago father, mother and three children were slaughtered in their beds by an Arab commando.

The attack in Toulouse is the culmination of a long anti-Semitic campaign. Two weeks ago, Paris’ Interior Ministry released the statistics of the anti-Jewish wave: 389 anti-Semitic attacks - only - in 2011, at least one every day.

In 2006 Ilan Halimi was kidnapped in Paris by a group of young Muslims. He was tortured for four weeks while they read him pages of the Koran, and then thrown into a landfill to die, covered with mortal wounds.

France is not an isolated case. Anti-Semitism in Western Europe is “the worst since World War II”, according to the Jewish Agency. It will only worsen in the future.

Books such as Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are prominently displayed bestsellers in Muslim stores on Edgware Road in the heart of London.

In Sweden, a country described by The Guardian as “the greatest success the world has known,” Jews are leaving large cities such as Malmö due to security reasons, in order to escape anti-Semitic attacks.

The Netherlands, which was once the shelter for the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who fled the 15th century Inquisition, is now a realm of fear, intimidation and subjugation.

Jews are fleeing Antwerp, the city once proudly called “the Northern Jerusalem”.

Jewish life in France and Europe is not under question, it’s already history.Maalot, Itamar and Toulouse… Always the same target: the Jewish people and the State of Israel, which the late French ambassador Daniel Bernard called “ce petit pays de merde” - that shitty little country.

Jewish life in France and Europe is not under question, it’s already history. For as comfortable as life might be in the arrondissements of Paris, it is time for the Jews of France to come home.

Before it’s too late, they should leave for Israel. The situation will only worsen.

Anti-Semitism is an eruption of barbarism in our civilization and the Jews have always been a barometer of tolerance. Europe is living its new nightmare and classical anti-Semitism has become a potent and dangerous mix in countries with enormous Muslim populations.

We will not be surprised if one day, under the Eurabian banner, these new Europeans will try to expel the descendants of the Holocaust from the land of Israel.

A succinct exposition of facts and law in support of Israel's lawful exercise of sovereignty over East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria that Harvard and UCLA don't want to hear.

Background (part of letter by the author,

a Harvard and UCLA alumnus, to UCLA):

On March 3-4 there was a conference held at Harvard* on a one state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In effect it was a "one Arab majority state" solution. The panel consisted of Arab academics and Israel post modern revisionist who are apologists for terrorism. The other side or sides were completely missing. Harvard would not accept our request to be part of a panel or make a presentation.

A similar conference was held or is soon to be held at UCLA. A second conference is likely at Harvard sponsored by Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School on a "two state solution" to the Arab Israeli conflict.

There are in fact three sides. That last would be "a one lawful state West of the Jordan River" solution. These three sides are akin to a three legged stool. When only one or two sides is presented it makes for a strong presentation but not a very balanced one.

I have been trying to find out how this third side could be presented at UCLA and I have been told by all my contacts at UCLA that it is impossible. They tell me that UCLA is just too politically correct. So I am making a last effort. I have published information on the three sides in an on-line blog entitled "Middle East and Terrorism" and a conservative Israeli newspaper called "Arutz Sheva", and I hope, at the very least, that you will make the links available to students at UCLA so they have access to a balanced presentation to a solution for the Arab Israeli conflict

[...]In 1917, in advance of the end of WWI, the British had drafted and published a policy for the disposition of the captured Ottoman lands in Palestine. [6] Britain and France were at that time following the “secret’ Sykes-Picot Agreement in their disposition of Ottoman Lands. But in recognition of the historic association of the Jews with Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, a British Policy approved it its Cabinet, provided for exclusive political or national rights in Palestine to be granted to the Jews.

The 1920 agreement of the WWI Allies at San Remo, on the terms of the Mandate turned what had been only a British Policy approved by the Cabinet, into International Law. Under Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant, the rights were to be provided in trust, [7].

We know this because the Balfour policy had been attacked as antidemocratic, as giving sovereignty to the Jewish people who constituted only 60,000 of the total population of 600,000 in Palestine as of 1917.

Balfour resigned as foreign secretary following the Paris Conference in 1919, but continued in the Cabinet as lord president of the council. In a memorandum addressed to new Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, he stated that the Balfour Declaration contradicted the letters of the covenant (referring to the League Covenant) the Anglo-French Declaration, and the instructions to the King-Crane Commission. All of the other engagements contained pledges that the Arab or Muslim populations could establish national governments of their own choosing according to the principle of self-determination. Balfour explained: “… in Palestine we do not propose to even go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present (majority) inhabitants of the country though the American [King-Crane] Commission is going through the form of asking what they are.

Balfour stated explicitly to Curzon:"The Four Great Powers [Britain, France, Italy and the United States] are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, and future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is right." * * * * *

Balfour continued:"I do not think that Zionism will hurt the Arabs, but they will never say they want it. Whatever be the future of Palestine it is not now an ‘independent nation’, nor is it yet on the way to become one. Whatever deference should be paid to the views of those living there, the Powers in their selection of a mandatory do not propose, as I understand the matter, to consult them.". . ."If Zionism is to influence the Jewish problem throughout the world, Palestine must be made available for the largest number of Jewish immigrants"

16 March 2012

From the Glenn Beck Show: It finally happened. The day has finally come. Glenn admitted on radio this morning that he doesn’t recognize the country, and sees that progressives are starting to crush the idea of American exceptionalism. And while he certainly wasn’t in a cheery mood over what was happening in the country, he did promise not to let the progressives crush him along the way. As regulations, indoctrinations and more come closer and closer to his front door, he made one promise – “I will not comply”.

“Today is a day that I feel that I have finally reached the point where I cannot say I recognize my country anymore. I really cannot recognize it anymore,” Glenn said as he opened the show.

“Can I tell you something? We are no longer exceptional,” he said. “We are exceptional by default now because they are doing everything they can to make sure that we’re not exceptional.”

For decades, progressives have been trying to shift from American exceptionalism to globalism and a movement for an open society. “Look, we’ve been going on fumes for a while. It’s not this, this president that has done this,” he said.

“What’s happened to me is I’ve always loved my country. But the progressive movement killed my country and now they’ve killed it for me just about three times. They killed it originally, but I didn’t grow up knowing about that country. I didn’t grow up knowing about our Founding Fathers and the the black Founding Fathers. I didn’t, I didn’t learn the things that I’m learning right now. So they killed it. It was all there. We were teaching it in schools in 1910, 1900 and then the progressives came and said ‘Don’t teach that stuff. Teach about the cherry tree and teach that they were all slave owners,’ and that’s the stuff that we learned,” he explained.

“Now, luckily I was around parents and grandparents who had learned enough in the past, but all of the stuff that I learned about our country, all of the love that I have from the country came, a lot of it, from Woodrow Wilson and Uncle Sam and Liberty bonds and all of that bullcrap that is nothing but red, white and blue flag‑waving. But even that was strong enough to bring us a hundred years down the road because it was based in something true that the progressives tried to erase.”

“So they killed the country. They killed my love for anything that was real. They buried it. They’ve done it for African‑Americans like nobody’s business. African‑Americans, tell me about Booker T. Washington. Tell me about him. Tell me about Frederick Douglass. Really tell me about him. Tell me about the African‑American that was by George Washington’s side the whole time. ‘Oh, he was a slave.’ Did you read his eulogy of George Washington? You should. It’s pretty amazing. Tell me about that.”

“Then George Bush starts doing stuff on the border, starts growing PATRIOT Act and all this stuff is starting to get out of control, the debt is going sky high, we’re arguing with each other about Republicans and Democrats. I don’t even understand my country anymore. And so I had to make the decision: What is my country? What is it? Who are we? Are we the baby‑killers? Are we the oppressors? And I had to go dig. And everything that I was raised to believe about the country died. And now I know who the real country is. Now I know what America really is. I know the bad and I know the good, and I have real ‑‑ a real rich, deep love for this country. It is exceptional. It was founded through divine providence and the protection of divine providence and good, decent men. And along the way, all the way along the way, there were really bad, evil men, as there are today. But they’re trying to kill it a third time and this time put it out.”

“I said to these guys last night sitting on my couch, I want to find the musicians that without using the red, white and blue and Lee Greenwood images can express the loss that we feel, the mourning that we feel, the fear. Not the fear for our own life but the fear that this idea can be vanquished and, on top of it, the true deep understanding that this idea that man is created and endowed by that creator with things that you cannot ever take away, and those things can’t be taken away because they come from the creator and we find them self‑evident. No matter how long they would put us in jail, no matter how they would torture us, they will still be self‑evident, that you are born free and man should be free. He has a right to his life. He has a right to his liberty. He has a right to pursue the things that will make him happy. You will never vanquish that. Never. And that’s what makes us unique. That’s what makes us special. Because we are the ones who put that down on writing. We’re the ones who’ve lived it. I should say we ‑‑ I think we may have lived it for about 50 years. Maybe. And then Andrew Jackson comes in and takes this idea of ‘Be humble, be good to each other’ and perverts it. ‘Kill the Indian because we’re here for God.’ It’s the same place that Columbus went wrong. Columbus was humble on the way over. He was arrogant on the way back. ‘We’re here for God. Kill them.’”

“It happens to man over and over and over and over again. That’s all right. We are unique. We are special. We are exceptional. But only when we’re humble. Only when we’re not trying to teach the world a lesson: ‘Be more like me. Be more like us.’ No. Be who you are. Be who you are. But allow me to be who I am as well. I am a man, and anyone who tries to extinguish that, I will not comply.”

“I want you to start saying those words to yourself. If you’re driving in the car right now all by yourself, I want you to say those words out loud. You need to start hearing yourself say those things: ‘I will not comply.’ You want to take away my right to have my kids work on my ranch, my farm? You want to tell my kids they can’t drive the tractor? I was driving a tractor when I was 10. “I will not comply.” You want to tell me that my kid ‑‑ so what? So they can go play soccer and get a trophy for losing? ‘I will not comply.’ Learn to say those words, and say them with meaning.”

I pray and have prayed for quite some time because the Lord has blessed me and cursed me with an ability to see over the horizon. If these things, these patterns, do not change, I pray that I have the strength to my dying breath to say ‘I will not comply.’”

..............................................The "Obama Administration" has enacted legislation that will allow the law enforcement people to arrest without due process anyone that they deem 'worthy' of such incarceration, and you can kiss them goodbye. I fear for Glenn's safety. He is a lone voice in the new socialist wilderness of America (a different kind of social networking), a pioneer for truth, integrity, and America's sovereignty.

On GBTV tonight, Glenn delivered what was probably one of his most passionate monologues since he began to broadcast on television. Why did Secretary Hilda Solis set Glenn off on a discussion that covered everything from new farming regulations to the Civil Rights Movement to the history of the Soviet Union? It was Glenn at his best, and a monologue that truly must be seen to be appreciated.

He started off the show by discussing proposed new regulations on farms that would limit the role of children in agricultural businesses, which would dramatically alter age old roles of youths on farms.

The Springfield News-Leader expains:

Proposed changes to federal child labor laws could interfere with that. The changes would place heavy restrictions on the type of work that kids can do on farms — even family farms.The U.S. Department of Labor opted to revisit its proposed regulations, so kids under 16 may not be able to work on their grandparents’ or other relatives farms in the future, if those family farms have been incorporated. The 51-page document up for debate offers restrictions on kids working in livestock pens, operating farm machinery, using power tools, climbing ladders, and working specified hours.

These changes are being spearheaded by Hilda Solis and the Department of Labor.

But as Glenn sees it, this is just the latest example of the government attempting to “co-parent”, and as a result of the interference children will ultimately lose out on the vital, character-building effects of having to know how to work at a young age. As a result, they will likely value their independence less and rely more on government than their selves when they grow older.

“Life isn’t easy but it is so much easier when you work hard,” Glenn said. The regulations will rob children of this lesson.

“They will learn to be a hard-working free man, and not a slave,” he added.

Glenn, of course, does not mean a slave in the way African Americans were enslaved prior to the Civil War, but in the sense of a group of people being ruled over by another, in this case a slave to the federal government. He said that he fears future generations are losing the ability to be able to stand and say “I am a man” and an individual, not part of a collective.

“I am so tired of these elites telling us what to do,” Glenn said.

“Because I saw hard work from my father, because I saw him have passion for what he did. Because I saw hard work from my grandfather. Because I saw people work themselves to death I happen to have good work ethic and I hope my kids learn it from me.”

“I hope they are as lucky as I am to attract people who have the same values,” Glenn said as he held up a copy of the Wall Street Journal trumpeting the success of GBTV.

“I end up there because of the people I work with,” he said pointing at the article. “Because you understand.

“Our values are being destroyed,” he warned. “Our culture is being destroyed.”

Glenn said people need to look back to the founding documents and to see the rights that man is endowed with from the Creator: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

“I am a man and I demand to be treated as a man. I make my own choices and I live with the consequences of those choices. I do not answer to you federal government. That’s not how it works,” he said.

Glenn said that when regulations are created that are not good citizens are required by The Declaration of Independence to respond.

“I hope to God we are not there yet, but you could make that case. And I’m so sorry if the media finds that dangerous speech. Is it dangerous now to quote the founding documents?” he said.

He said that if the government asks him to violate his values or give up his rights, he only has one answer: “I will not comply”. He admitted it would not be easy, the consequences might even be scary, but he will stand for what he believes in.

Glenn concluded the monologue with a look back at historical examples of overreaching federal regulation.

15 March 2012

When you have your mind on the world's problems day in and day out, and you see the Western world under assault by such throwbacks, sometimes you need to take your mind off it.

Here we are, the most powerful military on earth being beaten by a ragtag bunch, and not because our fighting men aren't tough or because we don't have the weapons but because we don't have the guts to use them.

And when you see a country like Israel, I don't know how Israel can survive. They're surrounded by the most demonic, hateful individuals on the planet.

Maybe the answer for you is to also tune out of some of this, because I know that people are tuning out of politics. Their hearts and their minds are snapping from it.

Do you think I think the old days of talk radio are still here, where people want to hear the reality of what's going on? Up to a point you do, but then you have to live a life.

If you're going to sit here day in and day out and just scream about it, no one is going to listen to you, because there's only so much anybody can take.

05 March 2012

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the de-industrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The de-industrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

The following are 19 facts about the de-industrialization of America that will blow your mind....

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2 Dell Inc., one of Americas largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U. S. Trade deficit with China has risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941. #12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The de-industrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I ( the author of this piece) have a direct challenge for you. If anyone can explain how a de-industrialized America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so.

01 March 2012

"While all the other festivals will be discontinued, the festival of Purim will never be suspended."

This assertion seems to fly in the face of Jewish Tradition, which states categorically that the Jewish festivals mentioned in the Torah, such as Pesach, Shavuoth and Succoth, will never cease to be celebrated. This is mentioned by the Talmud on several occasions: "The Mitzvoth (which would include the festivals) of the Torah will never be nullified, not even in the future days (the messianic age)." (Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Hilchoth Megillah 3:18) (1)

Rabbi Baruch Halevi Epstein, in his famous commentary Torah Temima on Megillath Esther (9:28), explains this contradiction, in the name of his father Rabbi Yechiel Michel Halevi Epstein, in the following most original manner:

The miracle of Purim is very different from the miracles mentioned in the Torah. While the latter were overt miracles, such as the ten plaques in Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the revelation at Sinai and the falling of the man (manna) in the desert, the miracle of Purim was hidden. Unlike with the miracles narrated in the Torah, no law of nature was ever violated in the Purim story, and the Jews were saved from the hands of Haman harasha (Haman the evil) by seemingly normal historical occurrences. Had we lived in those days we would have noticed nothing unusual, and many secularists would have explained the redemption of the Jews in Persia as the logical outcome of a series of natural and coincidental events. Only retroactively, when looking back at the story, would we have been astonished by all the incidents, their unusual sequence, and the seemingly unrelated and insignificant human acts which led to the complete redemption of the Jews during the time of Achashverosh's reign. The discovery that all these events actually concealed a miracle could only be made after the fact.

Such miracles will never cease to exist, explains the Torah Temima. In fact, they take place every day. But overt miracles, such as the splitting of the Red Sea, have come to an end. In light of this, the Midrash on Mishle is not suggesting that the actual festivals mentioned in the Torah will be nullified in future days, since this would contradict Jewish belief. Rather, it is stating that the original reasons for celebrating the festivals, namely overt miracles, have ceased.

So, one should read the Midrash as follows: Overt miracles, which we celebrate on festivals mentioned in the Torah, no longer occur. But miracles such as those celebrated on Purim will never be suspended; they continue to occur every day of the year. In other words, all the other festivals will still be celebrated to commemorate great historical events in Jewish history, events to be remembered and relived in the imagination of man so as to make them relevant and teach us many lessons for our own lives. Purim, on the other hand, although rooted in a historical event of many years ago, functions as a constant reminder that the Purim story never ended. We are still living the Purim story.

The Megillah is open-ended; it was and will never be completed!

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner z.l., in his celebrated work Pachad Yitzchak (volume on Purim, chapter 33), uses this idea to explain a highly unusual halachic stipulation related to Purim. During all Torah festivals, the congregation sings Hallel, the well-known classical compilation of specific Psalms. These Psalms praise God for all the great miracles He performed for Israel in biblical times, on occasions for which these festivals were later established. Why, then, asks the Talmud, do we not sing Hallel on Purim? Is there not even more reason to sing these Psalms on the day when God performed the great miracle of rescuing Israel from the hands of Haman? The Talmud answers that Keriyata zu hi hillula - the reading of Megillath Esther is in itself Hallel. When one reads the story of Esther, one actually fulfills the obligation of singing Hallel, because telling this story is itself the greatest praise to God for having saved the Jews. Reading the story awakens in us a feeling of unsurpassed thankfulness and a deep appreciation of the miracle of Jewish survival against all odds.

Interestingly, one of the most celebrated Talmud commentators, Rabbi Menachem Meiri (1249-1316), ponders the need to say Hallel on Purim when one is unable to read or hear the Megillah. In this case, according to his opinion, one should indeed sing Hallel, since one needs to thank God for what happened. Rabbi Hutner, however, points out that no other authority agrees with this opinion. They all rule that even if one is unable to read the Megillah, he should still not sing Hallel.

Rabbi Hutner explains this ruling in a most remarkable way, based on our earlier explanation. The psalms in Hallel speak about overt miracles and praise God for His revealed marvels such as those related in the Torah. Hallel intentionally does not include praise to God for hidden miracles, since those must be praised in a hidden way so as to remind the worshipper that such miracles occur on a daily basis. This is the reason why on Purim one reads Megillath Esther and does not recite Hallel. Megillath Esther is the story of a hidden miracle, and through the reading of this story in front of a congregation God receives praise in the appropriate way, in a subtle and hidden manner. After all, it is not God who needs praise but man who needs to praise; he must therefore do it in a way that corresponds to the actual miracle. He has to realize what kind of miracle took or takes place. Singing Hallel instead would be missing the point.

Moreover, one often wonders why the story of Purim is still relevant at all after the Holocaust. Not even a hidden miracle was performed to save the Jews from the hands of Hitler, a greater enemy than Haman. Why continue to praise God for a hidden miracle when it seems that even hidden miracles came to an end with the Holocaust? This question should be on the mind of every Jew who celebrates Purim. But it is not only the Holocaust that should raise this issue. The Spanish Inquisition, the many pogroms, and the various forms of exterminating complete Jewish communities throughout all of Jewish history, in which God's saving hand was absent, begs that very question. Should these events not convince Jews to abolish Purim altogether? History has proven Purim to be irrelevant and even offensive. How can we continue celebrating Purim when six million Jews, collectively, did not see the hidden hand of God and were left with no divine intervention? Is celebrating Purim not an affront to all those millions who were tortured and died under the most hideous circumstances?

Hundreds of personal stories describe how Jews risked their lives to rejoice in their Jewishness while facing the Nazis' atrocities. In the extermination camps they celebrated Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach and even Purim, and they literally had to decide whether to sing Hallel after failed attempts to find a megillah. What was it that kept them going? Was it just wishful thinking? What they realized then, as never before, was the eternity and indestructibility of the Jews. Perpetuity is the very essence of the Jews. When Rabbi Moshe Friedman of Boyan, a towering personality and great Talmid Chacham in pre-war Poland, was brought to Auschwitz with a transport of deeply religious Jews, during Pesach 1944, he was asked to undress prior to the "shower." He turned to the Oberscharführer, grasped the lapel of his Nazi jacket and said to him: "You, the most despicable murderers in the world, just do not imagine that you will succeed in destroying the Jewish people. The Jewish people will live forever. It will not disappear from the stage of history but instead you will be erased and disappear." (2)

It was indeed the famous, slightly anti-Semitic historian Arnold Toynbee who, with great annoyance, alluded to what history has taught us: any nation that will stand up against the Jews will ultimately disappear. Such was the fate of the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians and the Greeks, and such may yet be the fate of the Germans. (3)

Jews have been an ever-dying people that never died. They have experienced a continuous resurrection like that of the dried bones in the Book of Yechezkel (chapter 37: 1-14). This has become the sine qua non of every Jew. It is the mystery of the hidden miracle of survival in the face of overwhelming destruction. True, Amalek was the Führer, and Haman prevailed, but ultimately they were defeated. We live in spite of peril. Our refusal to surrender has turned our story into one long, unending Purim tale.

To this day, a large part of the world does not know what to do with us. We make them feel uneasy because we represent something they can't put their fingers on. Jews are sui generis. Above all, it is the existence and survival of the State of Israel that irritates many. The rules of history predicted that the Jews would die a definite and final death; instead we have become the greatest success story in all of modern history. Perplexity morphed into aversion. Where does this small nation, which does not comprise even one percentage of mankind, have the chutzpah to play such a crucial role in science, technology, and many other areas of human knowledge?

What would the world do without the Jews who are responsible for so many inventions that are crucial to the survival of the modern world? Great progress and major breakthroughs in the world of medicine, such as the treatment of paralysis, depression, Alzheimer's disease and DNA breakdown, are Israeli accomplishments. What about Windows, voice mail, and the most advanced anti-terror systems? Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, and in proportion to its population has the largest number of start-up companies in the world. It is ranked second in the world for venture capital funds. And the list goes on.

Even if, God forbid, the State of Israel would not survive Ahmadinejad - the Haman of our day - every Jew instinctively knows that the Jewish people will endure, even without their homeland, and will climb the ladder and surprise the world once again. Purim will never cease.

"As the camp commander took a number of young Gerer Chassidim to be put to death, one, Israel Eisenberg, asked for permission to say a few words to his friends. I stood opposite them and heard every word. .... He got hold of the hands of another bahur (yeshiva student) and started singing. They were calling to each other: The most important thing.. let us rejoice. They all began to sing. And to dance as if a fire had been lit within them. Their sidelocks, which till then were hidden under their hat, they now pulled out and let them hang down their face. They paid no attention to what was going on around them. They were dancing and singing. And I thought I would lose my senses... that young people should go to their death as one goes to dance! Thus dancing, they jumped in the pit as a rain of bullets was pouring down on them." (4)

Which Jew, even secular or atheist, dares to betray these young people by not celebrating Purim? Which Jew dares to ignore Judaism, making himself guilty of spiritual bankruptcy in the face of these fearless Chassidim? This is the ultimate question that every Jew must ask himself. Not to do so would be a tragic dereliction of duty.

_______________________________1. See my booklet, The Torah as Gods Mind: A Kabbalistic Look into the Pentateuch, Jerusalem, Bep-Ron Publications, 1988, for a completely different interpretation.2. See Eliezer Berkovits, With God in Hell: Judaism in the Ghettos and Deathcamps, New York-London, Sanhedrin Press, 1979, pp.110-111.3. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, 10 volumes, 1934-61.4. Eliezer Berkovits, ibid, pp. 111-112, as told by a Kapo in the Plaszow camp.

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LIVING in Eretz Israel is the equivalent of all the Mitzvot of the Torah (Sifri, Parashat Re'eh, TOSEFTA, AVODA ZARA 5:2)

Fortunate is he who merits in his life to FIX HIS RESIDENCE in Eretz HaKodesh (Zohar Hakadosh Iii 72b) and remove from your heart this false belief that a man has more blessings outside the land (Alshich Hakadosh, Ki Tavo 28:6)